Serendipity
During free play in my toddler Just Jump n Jive class, blond-haired Serendipity ran around and around and around the floor mats.
"I'm running," she shouted as she sped past me, making sure I was paying attention.
Then she stopped.
"These balls match," she laughed, running over to grab two green balls. After showing her grandmother she tossed them aside and began running again, around and around the room.
"What time does she nap?" I asked her grandmother.
She rolled her eyes. "She doesn't. She just goes non-stop all day."
We smiled in sympathy at each other as Serendipity raced by, only to stop again.
"These balls match," she shouted again, this time grabbing two blue ones.
Serendipity makes me smile. (How could anyone named Serendipity not make me smile?) She reminds me of the dog, Dug, in the movie Up who is constantly losing his train of thought when he thinks of - "SQUIRREL!" Serendipity and Dug have a lot in common.
Yet I am looking forward to having Serendipity in my class this August. She embodies simple joy - finding balls that match, running around the room with blond hair swinging and short legs pumping, while under the loving eye of her grandmother.
We can learn a lot from kids. My friend, Ben Geist says, "Children are little wonders" and I would agree. Jesus has a soft spot for them. He said to love him we need to have faith like a child's. Now I don't claim to know everything that means, but I do know one thing:
A child-like faith is full of wonder.
Children look at their world with wide-eyed amazement as they exclaim over snowflakes, earthworms, jello, balls that match, and the new baby giraffe at the zoo. There is nothing dull about the world a child sees.
And there should be nothing dull about my faith either. It should be filled with adventure and wonder and risk and amazement. Unfortunately, I think most of us think about faith and we swallow back a big yawn and think Yeah, yeah, I've heard all that before.
But it shouldn't be this way!
Mark Batterson writes in Primal, “We need moments when heaven seems to invade earth. When a moment of eternity seems to invade time. When the presence of God seems as tangible as a cool breeze on a hot day.”
I found that moment today. I felt God's smile in my classroom because of a young girl named Serendipity. She is a little wonder.